Should I Move for Her?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hey everyone, need some advice. This is going to be a long post, thanks for reading-

Quick Summary- My Girlfriend of 15 months wants me to move somewhere I don’t want to go for the rest of my life. I like her but relationship is a little rocky. Should I go/ What should my thought process be?

In April received an offer for my dream job. However, this job requires a decision on location that is somewhat permanent, once I build a book of business it is hard to move somewhere and start over. My girlfriend just graduated from college and is a nurse. I always wanted to move to this mid-size town in a rural area (rated best place to live in magazines) because it is beautiful and I have family there. This is my chance to go. At first my girlfriend was reluctant, she wanted to move to a larger city where she has the opportunity to work at top tier hospitals. After much discussion she agreed to come with me because the income opportunity for my job is really great and this is where I always wanted to live.

So in June I moved out west for 6 months of training. She was looking for a job in the area I was planning on relocating to and was planning to move there and wait for me to come. However, because she is awesome, she ended up getting a job at one of the best hospitals in the country in a city about 3 hours away from the area that I am going.

So now she wants me to change my location plans and come to the city where she got the job. The problem is that this move is a permanent decision for me. I have excellent opportunities in the area that I was going to go and not so much in the city she got the job in. I also do not particularly want to spend the rest of my life and/or raise a family in that city.

I’m considering doing it for her but I do have some reservations. Our relationship is somewhat rocky. Lots of times she will get mad at me for the smallest things and not talk to me for hours or even day or two at a time. Also I’m a pretty good boyfriend; I do really nice things for her. Take her on nice trips, dinners and events, nice texts, emails and everything. I’m never mean or judgmental. Literally the only times I get mad at her are when she gets mad at me for the small things (she made out with two guys shortly after we started dating and I said how hurt I was but I never went off on her or anything- I’m pretty patient). But even with all of this she will often get sulky saying that I don’t care about her or love her. Also, for some reason she is jealous of my relationship with my mother. I talk to my mom 2-3 times a week and generally get her advice on larger life decisions. My girlfriend thinks that this is weird and that I’m too close to my mom. Its almost to the point where I’m scared to talk about my mom in front of her.

A few weeks ago my girlfriend sent me an email talking about my mom and my impending relocation. She said that the relationship with my mom needs to change. Also that she does not want to do Long Distance Relationship and that she will not give up her job in a few years to move to the city where I want to go. If I don’t move to where she is then our relationship won’t continue.

I really love her a lot and enjoy spending as much time as I can with her. However I don’t know if I want to move somewhere for the rest of my life based on the relationship we have now. It might be age and that we both have growing up to do- I’m 26 she is 23.

I was hoping to get some opinions or some suggestions on different ways to go thinking about it. If you have any questions just ask. Thanks.

2

IMHO - Hell NO!
You’ve been together 15 months and things are rocky.
Let me ask you this, if you do as she wishes and move somewhere you don’t want to and then you break up a year later will you regret the decision?

3

Not sure if I would regret it. Probably would…

The thing is that the area she is going to is only an hour away from my immediate family which wouldn’t be terrible. And this whole deciding where I’m going to live for the next 20-30 years is terrifying either way.

4

Does she appreciate the nice things you do for her?

Do you each compromise in the relationship - or do you do most of the compromising?

Forget for a moment about the moving thing - say you were in the same city and both had the jobs you wanted there. What would you say the odds are your relationship would last another two years?

I know people will say nothing is wrong with it - and to each their own, but I would NOT be attracted to a woman who relied on her father for advice three times a week. That is just me. There is nothing wrong with it per se, but I don’t think those types (different) of people mix well. It sounds to me more like an insecurity thing on her part. To ask you to change your relationship with your mom seems a little weird.

My guess is you are more into her than she is into you. That stuff about you not loving her is not necessarily her wanting your love - it’s her need for reassurance that she is wanted.

My suggestion is to take the moving out of the equation. Do you REALLY think this will last? If so - then add that in. My guess is deep down you know it’s doomed, you love her very much, and are hoping there is someway to make it work.

I hope I’m wrong. Love sucks sometimes.

BTW - I’m just a guy on the internet who has loved and lost plenty of times. So maybe you should ignore me :slight_smile: the pain doesn’t get any better over the years, but within each relationship - each day is a tiny bit better.

5

Unfortunately, you’re already facing that decision regardless of how the relationship goes.

There seems to be three forks in the road:

  1. You go to the town you like and your relationship probably ends.

  2. You go to the city she likes and your relationship works out and becomes long-term.

  3. You go to the city she likes but your relationship ends anyway.

You need to ask yourself how much you value the living location vs how much you value the relationship. You need to ask yourself how likely you think the relationship is to last. And you need to ask yourself how much you will regret it if you end up without the town or the girl.

There’s not much point in asking other people for their opinions on this. This is all your personal feelings at play here.

6

We only have your side of the story but from what you’ve described, she’s unwilling to accept you for who you are and unwilling to even discuss, much less compromise on life altering decisions. It’s all there in black and white in your first post.

What do you love about her? The fact that she finds your relationship with your mom to be weird and must change? The fact that she gives you the silent treatment for days at a time over minor bullshit? The fact that she’s put down an ultimatum to uproot your life plans and move to her city without discussion or be dumped? All this at 15 months in? You’re supposed to still be in the honeymoon phase at 15 months. Plus, she hooked up with two different guys after you started dating?

I bet she’s insanely hot, isn’t she? Not worth it, dude. My guess is that you know this and are seeking validation. You got it.

Dump the insanely hot nurse. Go find a better woman, seriously.

7

To the OP - a clear and definite “no.”

He didn’t say he got advice 3 times a week. He said he talked to her 3 times a week and asked her advice on major things. That sounds like a close but normal relationship. We also don’t know if he talks to her for hours all the time or if those 2-3 times per week includes shorter calls. The former would be a bit odd, the latter not at all.

8

It sounds like she’s not willing to compromise for your relationship. She found a job 3 hours away from your desired location and wants you to give up your great opportunity so she can have hers.

15 months is really not that long to make life decisions for that person, especially if things are somewhat rocky now. Some people fall madly and deeply in love quicker, but I’m sure they would be willing to make sacrifices to make it work and have a long distance relationship for awhile.

As for having too close of a relationship with your mom…your description doesn’t sound abnormal. My husband frequently talks to his mother and asks her advice. At first, I was jealous when he would talk to her about our relationship. It made me uncomfortable and feel like I was being “gossiped” about. But I do the same thing with my own mom. And in the larger picture of things, I would hope my future son would keep me involved in his life. So I realized my jealousy was stupid and petty. Now I talk to my mother in law about life decisions as well, she’s a great confidante and adds perspective that I wouldn’t necessarily think of.

My short answer is no. I think you should take your dream job in your desired location and start your new life. If she wants to be a part of that, invite her too. But I think you should take advantage of your amazing opportunity and run with it. In the world we live in, getting your dream job can be scarce. Don’t give that up for a rocky relationship that may not last because I think you’d really regret it.

9

You sound young. You are both starting careers and have each been lucky enough to find your dream job. That should be your focus for now, building that job.

Also, free advice from the internet is worth exactly what you paid for it.

10

When you say “because she is awesome”, it sounds more likely that “she deliberately applied for this job even though she knew it was not possible to take on the job and continue living with me in our new location.” :frowning:

11

Hi pack78 and welcome to Des Moines, a place you will like much better that Rochester. Okay, that was a WAG based on your description. Anyway, I have to agree with everyone else that at your age, the fact that you are both just really getting started on your career, and that the relationship is not very solid makes me say you should each go where your best options lie. On the upside, three hours in the Midwest is really not that far if you both wanted to try a long-distance relationship for a while. And if things don’t work out for her at Mayo, Mercy and Methodist in Des Moines are both excellent hospitals.

12

The relationship between you two doesn’t sound that particularly healthy, and “dream jobs” are even rarer than a girl to know/fall in love with.

Wherever you’re going will probably not have a job as good as that one.

Wherever you’re staying will probably have a girl as good as her.

Besides, maybe she’ll cave and come to you? Maybe time apart will show how you/she really feels?

13

The way you describe your rocky relationship, you might want to consider moving even further away from her. If it’s bad now, it will probably get worse once you live together and/or get married.

I’ve been married to a nurse for 37 years. It’s a high stress job. (How was your day? I had two patients die.) If she has “issues” now, things won’t get better unless she’s willing to change.

How’s the dating scene where you want to live?

14

Looking at this from a pragmatic perspective, you two are both young, your relationship is rocky, and you’re both starting out on careers that are important to you. Without knowing anything about your career, but knowing that, in general, nursing is a job that will generally do well pretty much anywhere, this situation seems dubious. That is, she knew you were looking at moving there, if she was really interested in supporting you in it, why was she even looking at a job at a hospital 3 hours away?

That is, for example I live in Northern Virginia, and if a girlfriend and I were planning on moving in together, it would very much strike me as a deliberate move on her part to either force my hand or break us up if she happened to find a job in, say, Baltimore or Richmond, knowing there’s tons of opportunities a lot closer, and both of those cities are more on the order of 2 hours away and not 3. That said, I could imagine a girlfriend being really interested in one of those jobs if they were amazing opportunities, and if the relationship were worth it, I would consider something like finding another job closer to that, or look at finding a compromise where we could find a place to live between those two spots.

In short, it seems to me, as someone pointed out upthread, you basically have a few options. You can make your career your top priority, which pretty much spells the end of this relationship. You can make the relationship your top priority, which could have long term career implications and you have no guarantee the relationship will work out. You can try to make some sort of compromise about where you two live, and that could mean the best of both worlds, keeping the relationship and pursuing your career, or it could mean the worst, the relationship fails and you still have negative career consequences.

Quite frankly, having been in a similar situation at your age, staring down making serious personal concessions to pursue a rocky relationship, continuing on the path toward my career and personal choices to the nearly certain end of the relationship, or trying to balance both, if I could do it over again, I’d have given up on the relationship. Unfortunately, I chose the third option, a big gamble, and I lost both; the relationship still ended badly, and it set me back in other ways that took a while to recover from. One thing I realized after was, if that relationship had really been worth it, I would have been more willing to make those personal concessions and she would have been more willing to compromise, and that it ended up like that meant that we were probably doomed even if I had made her my absolute first priority.

So, only you can really decide just how much you’re willing to risk for her and how much you’re risking by choosing her, but based on the OP, it sounds like you already think the relationship probably won’t last too much longer anyway but aren’t quite at the point where you’re willing to cut it off. Hell, maybe part of the reason she took that job is because she’s feeling similar and isn’t willing to directly end it herself, so it puts the onus and blame on you for making the decision of breaking you two up on you, since you now have to choose between her and your job. Regardless of which way you end up going, good luck.

15

She sounds controlling and unwilling to compromise. Maybe you talk to your mom too much, maybe you don’t, but talking to your mom less to avoid getting in trouble is not the answer, nor is establishing your career somewhere you don’t want to be.

16

At your ages, and where you each are, it doesn’t make any sense to sacrifice long-term career progression for what may well be a temporary relationship. If you go your separate ways, you both end up better off. either

  1. you realize you aren’t interested enough to maintain an LDR, and you’re each in your better career position with no regrets.
    or
  2. You realize you are committed and change your thinking to make all decisions as a team and for the good of the team, but you each still have a solid year of work experience under your belt which lends considerably more flexibility in your job search, so you’re still better off because you have more options in making your (now-joint) decision.
    or
    2a. You realize you’re not capable of reaching compromise with this person and so break up afterall but you’re both still better off, because you learned something important and you’re each free to pursue a better match.

My tale: hideous job, uncommitted relationship. I moved, we continued as LDR. Decided want to be long-term committed, next move was to progress my education in a totally different place from where either of us was living, and we moved in together and got married in the new place.

17

Sounds more like Iowa City and Rochester to me. :slight_smile:

Anyway–I have been in this situation before, a couple of times. I would stick with your original plan and try it as a long-distance relationship. I don’t think it’s wise to move for someone you are not certain about. The LDR will help clarify your feelings for one another.

18

Living in Iowa is considered a desirable option for someone?
Huh.

19

Nope, nope, nope.

Most things have been said, but note that moving to a new place with new people and a new job and new possibilities is a perfect recipe for her suddenly deciding that she’s had enough with you, especially given her age. Also, if the relationship is destined to end, what better way to start fresh than to be in a town you want to be in, near family, and with all your options in front of you. Might this be a blessing in disguise?

20

Take the job.

  1. You describe it as a “dream” in a place you “always” wanted to live in. You don’t really describe your girlfriend in such adoring terms.

  2. Assume that she cares as much about her career and home as you do about yours.

  3. When things go sour between your girlfriend and your mother, it doesn’t matter whose fault it is, but it’s a good bet it’s not going to get better.

  4. She’s given you an ultimatum three months after you started your job training? She took a job in another city after knowing where you’d be relocating? Wish her well in her career move and hope she does the same for you.